Afrancesa Mistral AI, one of the hottest names on the AI scene – and probably the biggest in the segment in Europe – has just raised a large sum to increase its “firepower” in the fierce race with the big names in Silicon Valley. There was more than €750 million (around US$830 million) in financing for the construction of its own data center.
Based in Paris, the company will use the money to buy 13,800 advanced chips from Nvidia, based on a new center in Bruyères-le-Châtel, south of Paris, expected to come into operation in the second quarter of 2026.
The choice of location, made in February 2025, is part of a larger strategy: creating sufficient infrastructure to train and run advanced AI models within Europe itself.
According to CEO Arthur Mensch, increasing local capacity is an important step for the business. “Scaling our infrastructure in Europe is critical to empowering our customers and ensuring that innovation and autonomy in AI remain at the heart of Europe,” said the executive, in a note.
Sovereignty
It is not new that Mistral is leading a movement to make Europe an independent force in the development of AIs. At the end of last year, it received an investment of €1.7 billion – most of it funded by ASML, a Dutch semiconductor giant.
At the time, the partnership between the two was seen by experts as a milestone for the development of European sovereignty in AI. This movement meets a growing demand from governments and companies that want alternatives to American providers — especially in sensitive sectors, where data sovereignty and security have become a priority.
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At the beginning of the year, the CEO of deep tech even poked at his Yankee competitors, saying that his company’s biggest asset was “not being American”, which works as a strategic differentiator when attracting large European clients.
In this vein, Mistral has already announced a second data center in Sweden and wants to reach 200 megawatts of computing capacity in Europe by 2027. The company has already been positioning itself in this space, including providing AI models for the French Armed Forces.
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